The Hindu : National : 'Enact law for compulsory registration of marriages'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 09, 2004

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National

'Enact law for compulsory registration of marriages'

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI, APRIL 8. The Supreme Court today issued notice to all the States and the Union Territories to consider enacting a legislation for compulsory registration of marriages across the country to check the menace of child marriage in many States.

A Bench, comprising the Chief Justice V.N. Khare, Justice S.B. Sinha and Justice S.H. Kapadia, asked the States and the Union Territories to respond within two months.

It also asked them to strictly implement the provisions of the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 to ensure that no child marriage took place within their territory.

The Bench passed this interim order on a petition filed by the Forum for Fact Finding, Documentation and Advocacy highlighting the plight of young girls being married off by their parents even before they reached the age of puberty.

The Bench said that one way of curbing the practice was to make it mandatory for all to register their marriages under which one was obliged to give the age at the time of marriage.

Appearing for the petitioner, advocate Colin Gonsalves cited the example of Sri Lanka where after the registration of marriage was made mandatory, the marriageable age of girls had gone up by three years.

He said the District Collector and the Superintendent of Police should be made accountable for the enforcement of the ban on child marriage provided under the present laws.

When a girl was married off at an early age, she becomes an object of exploitation, both sexually and physically by her in-laws.

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